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Why American Corporate Software Can No Longer Be Trusted
jrepin writes "There is a problem with proprietary, closed software, which makes Rick Falkvinge, the founder of the first Pirate Party, a bit uneasy: 'We get a serious democratic deficit when the citizens are not able to inspect if the computers running the country's administrations are actually doing what they claim to be doing, doing all that and something else invisibly on top, doing the wrong thing in the wrong way at the wrong time, or doing nothing at all. ... In the debate around the American Stop Online Piracy Act, American legislators have demonstrated a clear capability and willingness to interfere with the technical operations of American products, when doing so furthers American political interests regardless of the policy situation in the customer’s country."
you are left with not much but Linux as an alternative!
FreeBSD, (and other BSDs), FreeDOS, Darwin, Haiku, Plan 9, Solaris just to name a few. FreeBSD in particular is quite competitive with Linux, since many of the same GUI elements and applications will run on both.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
which is hilarious because our manufacturing base is gone.
Which is why we still have more manufacturing capability than any other country in the world, including China? Granted those stats are a bit old, it's still true. The number of jobs is down (by a lot), because US manufacturing has grown more efficient, which creates the impression that we lack manufacturing capability. Well, that and all the "Made in China" crap you find at Walmart. The reality is the US makes ~18% of the worlds manufactured stuff. And that is considered a "small fraction" of the US's economy. In an international context, the US is massive. Still by far the biggest player.
Also, the US probably should ban Chinese electronics in defense applications, but they don't.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
n00b. No one forces you to adopt the GPL. Only those enlightened souls who *actually create something* can choose to use the GPL. All the *non-creators* who want to use the stuff the creators made without giving their own users the same freedoms are the ones who whinge.
GPL is not slavery and saying it is means you have a poor grasp of it. GPL is set of copyright terms that are designed to avoid slavery/proprietary lock-in/corporate malfeasance to users. If you don't want to use/re-use GPL software then don't. The GPL creators owe you nothing so quit whinging. How about you *create* something yourself - then we'll see what the copyright infringers and software stealers (China is bad for this) make with your stuff.
The word 'piracy' is an attempt by Big Media to frame the debate. Let's be clear: 'piracy' is unlawfully attacking a ship on the high seas; 'copyright infringement' means unlawfully copying something. In this case 'freedom' will never equate to piracy. Freedom may mean ignoring copyright infringment if it is for the greater social good (which is my understanding of Stallman's position) - in fact in the past the USA was founded on industries that bypassed patents and copyrights held by British industry (such as automated looms etc), so such as position is not without precedent and is no less moral than the fledgling US government (the 'Founding Fathers' as they seem to be idolized as today).